Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment

KRRRKUMBLE—

The instant the final line left my lips, dark clouds began gathering overhead.

Through the churning black, seven points of starlight came into view.

Once the clouds had fully coalesced, I folded my legs into a lotus position atop the altar, wrapped my entire body in the Jade Sound Ice Seal at full power, and waited.

Before long, the first heavenly tribulation fell.

KWAAANG—!

The moment it struck, my consciousness flickered out and snapped back in the same breath. In that gap, the tribulation's energy had torn through every inch of me.

The pure force of the heavenly lightning spread through all the meridians of my body, savagely prying at their innermost ends, and my dantian swelled with the vast, alien power. The agony was beyond anything words could hold — it felt as though my soul would tear free through the crown of my skull at any moment.

But the mental strength I had built through years of training refused to let go. It kept pouring that mountain of suffering straight into my brain. Realizing that if I failed to control this energy, nothing but death awaited me, I clenched my teeth and drove every scrap of my focus into my lower dantian.

"Uuughhk!!"

Barely holding my mind together, I turned my awareness inward — and found that the tribulation energy flooding my lower dantian was nearly equal to all the spiritual power I possessed.

Only then did I understand why my dantian had ballooned. More than twice my own energy pouring in at once — of course it was on the verge of bursting.

Cheongryu had told me that Foundation Establishment was about driving the energy inward, and that the method of compression depended on each cultivator's own capability and imagination. There was no set formula; succeed in compressing it any way you could, and the Foundation was yours.

Recalling her words, I spread my Cold Yin energy from my lower dantian out through every meridian in my body. Then, the way one coats a surface, I lined the inside of each meridian with it.

As the jade-tinted Cold Yin energy, steeped in the influence of the Jade Sound Ice Seal, sheathed the inner walls of my meridians, the pain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠finally began to subside.

The reason was simple: drawing the Cold Yin energy out had carved out space inside the dantian, and reinforcing the meridians with it kept the raging tribulation energy from tearing them apart.

In that state, I began using the Cold Yin energy to push the tribulation's power out of the smallest capillaries and into the great trunks of the meridians, gathering it into thick streams.

The energy in the minor channels slid inward as the sheath of Cold Yin lining them contracted, migrating up into the main meridians those channels branched from. Then I pulled the Cold Yin lining down, starting from the points farthest from the dantian.

Repeating that process over and over, I was finally able to herd the tribulation energy into my upper body.

But as the energy compressed, its density climbed — and the pressure bearing down on my Cold Yin energy grew with it.

That was when it happened.

Moonlight poured down over my head, and another layer of yin energy settled atop the Cold Yin sheath holding back the lightning. The burden eased at once.

'Yesss!'

Cheongryu had fed me the moon's yin energy.

Buoyed by that power, I began to compress. The sphere of energy shrank from my upper body down toward my abdomen until, at last, my Cold Yin energy folded over the top of my lower dantian.

'Seal it…!'

I poured all my focus into the image of freezing the Cold Yin energy exactly as it was — and finally, a single film of ice wrapped around my lower dantian, sealing the tribulation energy inside.

"Haaah…!"

Only then could I breathe again.

"This is just the beginning! Concentrate!"

My relief lasted only a moment before Cheongryu's voice rose from below the altar. I looked up, just as she said — and of the seven stars burning within the clouds, only one had gone dark.

And immediately, the second tribulation struck.

KRRRKUMBLE—!

"Ughk!"

Once again lightning lanced through my whole body, and I bit down hard against the pain. I had already burned every last scrap of my Cold Yin energy sealing the first tribulation — what was I supposed to do about this one?!

Desperate to push past the agony, I turned my focus inward again.

'Huh?'

And there it was.

The first tribulation's energy wasn't raging inside the seal at all. It had gone perfectly still.

At that discovery, I released the Cold Yin sheath maintaining the seal and confirmed it with my own senses: the first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tribulation's energy sat condensed and fixed, frozen in place.

The moment I confirmed it had stabilized, I spread the Cold Yin energy out through my body exactly as before, wrapped it around the second tribulation's power, and began driving it inward once more.

And in the end, the second bolt, too, was successfully sealed atop the first.

The remaining five tribulations fell one after another after that. But unlike before, having grasped the trick of compressing the energy, I subdued each bolt with ease, corralled it into my lower dantian, and sealed it again — and before I knew it, the seventh tribulation had been sealed just like the rest.

I could feel the sphere of ice imprisoning the tribulations in my lower dantian radiating a bone-deep chill.

At the same moment, the ice enveloping them began to seep inward, staining the tribulation's pure, natural qi with that cold, yin-soaked energy.

And then — I felt my consciousness peel free of my body and rise toward the sky.

It kept climbing, and stopped above the clouds.

"No way."

The scene around me was the same one I'd seen every time I drew Augments and rewards.

Was I about to roll for the Foundation Establishment Augment?

Just then, light flashed across the heavens. I looked up to see the seven points of starlight begin to dance among themselves.

The lights trailed ribbons behind them as they wove together, growing fewer — and brighter — with every pass.

Seven. Six. Five. Four. And at last, three.

Then the starlight froze in place — and began to fall like a meteor shower.

Straight toward me.

"Aaaaahhh?!"

I reacted instantly, hurling my body backward. But the meteor shower paid my retreat no mind; as if homing in on me, it banked and kept falling in my direction.

The moment the light reached my face, I shut my eyes.

One second. Two. Three.

No pain came.

When I cautiously cracked my eyes open, three resplendent, iridescent crystal tablets floated before me.

And engraved across the top of each: a single glyph — Heaven.

"Huh? Heaven-grade!"

So all that thunderous spectacle earlier had just been the special effects for rolling Augments?

Maybe the Heavenly Dao Foundation had affected the grade. What were the odds that the seven stars of the Big Dipper themselves would manifest as my crystal tablets? If the manner of one's breakthrough really did determine the Augment's rank, then following Cheongryu's advice had paid off after all.

Soon the light on the tablets stilled, and I checked their contents.

One read-through was enough to tell me that Perish Together was off the table. Granted, that "whoever they may be" was intriguing, but what good was that if I was dead? Unless there happened to be some resurrection Augment lying around, picking it seemed utterly pointless.

So it came down to choosing between the other two.

The first was the Jade Rabbit — in a word, the Immortal Beast True Blood of the moon rabbit. At my current stage, still so early in the long road of cultivation, choosing it might well accelerate my training, and if the true blood granted a variety of other effects on top of that, so much the better.

The second was the dharma treasure option — and judging by the hints tucked into the fine print, I suspected it would yield a True Treasure at Core Formation and a Spirit Treasure at Nascent Soul.

Dharma Treasures were unquestionably rare, but by Cheongryu's promise, now that I had reached Foundation Establishment I could become her disciple — and wouldn't I be able to obtain a Dharma Treasure at that point, anyway?

If I were choosing this at Core Formation, I'd likely be offered the True Treasure, the tier above — and since True Treasures were even harder to come by than Dharma Treasures, that was where the option would really start to carry weight.

Of course, that plausible-sounding line about refining one's Primordial Spirit suggested it was no ordinary artifact even by Dharma Treasure standards, but right now it simply didn't pull at me. Besides — I didn't really know what a Primordial Spirit was, but it didn't seem like the sort of thing to be refining on a whim.

And more to the point, hadn't I already earned an Augment Storage Pouch as a reward upon reaching the mid-stage of Qi Condensation — a pouch that let me hold one option in reserve and choose it later?

Which meant anything I passed on now wasn't lost to me.

I slipped the Primordial Spirit Refinement tablet into the Augment Storage Pouch I'd earned before, then picked up the first crystal tablet.

The moment my fingers closed around it, the tablet melted, condensing into a single palmful of liquid. The liquid held a cloudy, milk-white tint shot through with red, and it soaked straight into my hand.

"...That's it?"

For all the name "Immortal Beast True Blood," I felt nothing at all.

And sure enough — as always, no sooner had I finished choosing my Augment than my body dropped straight back down beneath the clouds.

"Haaah!"

I came back to myself atop the altar.

My clothes had apparently burned away entirely in weathering the tribulations — I was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sitting cross-legged in nothing but my bare skin. But that hardly mattered.

Foundation Establishment.

I had finally reached Foundation Establishment.

At thirteen years old, I had finally become a Foundation Establishment cultivator — and through the Heavenly Dao Foundation, no less.

"Congratulations. As promised, Jihwa — from this moment, you are my disciple."

Cheongryu's voice drifted up from below the altar. She flicked a length of cloth toward me, draping it over my body.

When I looked into her eyes as she gazed down at me with that soft, contented smile, emotion I couldn't name surged up out of nowhere, and I felt as though I might cry.

Wait — wasn't Foundation Establishment supposed to be beyond the reach of hormones?

Or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠maybe I'd simply been a crybaby in my past life.

"Hh… huuueeeeh…."

Reborn in this strange land, and after learning that this was a world of immortals and swords — how desperately had I yearned for the path of cultivation all this time? I had become Cheongryu's maidservant, and at last a true cultivator, one worthy of the name Foundation Establishment — and now, at last, I had been accepted as her disciple.

"And now I've gone and gained a crybaby of a disciple."

Cheongryu came closer and stroked my hair.